"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Tough Guy

"There isn't a goddamn difference between Don King and Don Trump. One guy's hair goes north and south, the other's goes east and west." -- Charley Steiner, radio voice for the USFL New Jersey Generals

If they pray over at CNN, chances are it's something along the lines of give us this day our daily clickbait. Then Wolf Blitzer breaks out his party surplice and farts around with the election hologram touch-screen doodad, while deep twit-thoughts scroll across the base of the screen. News you can use!

Let's not get confused over the success of Clownstick's cheap one-upmanship jabs. It's part blue ocean strategy, mostly sheer audacity and down-punching ego. No mystery there. The "establishment" candidates were a step or three behind because it was in their nature; the establishment media have been behind the whole way because they're used to covering establishment candidates. Everyone was stuck in the traditional playbook, because at heart this is a money game, and everyone was making money, so there was no reason to change anything.

Now their conventional wisdom has shifted to covering Drumpf's nonsense as if it has any validity, simply because it's "working," except it looks more and more like it's only working on the converted. His attempt to bait a federal judge may well end up going down as an all-time blunder, right up there with Crystal Pepsi and drafting Jamarcus Russell at #1 overall. Even I know you don't fuck with judges.

(Also, too: This is the guy Clownstick's whining about, someone who literally risked his life to take on the Mexican drug cartels. If there was any remaining doubt about whether Fuckface Von Clownstick is an ignorant, whiny, pissy little cunt, let it be removed once and for all.)
But Clownstick decided to ankle-bite a real big dog, and it's going to cost him. Once the gutless scriveners break away from the daily Deadbeat Dipshit verbal abuse and check out the document dump, they'll find some cool facts, some of which might interest Drumpf's ancient, addled fan-base. (Aside from the obvious "where can a bazillionaire catch a fucking break, amirite?" plaint, which shouldn't pass muster even among these dupes.)

For instance, in the Makaeff v. Trump class-action lawsuit, four of the six plaintiffs are senior citizens, and Complaint 13 (p. 4) specifically notes that Trump "University" targeted seniors. This is not a small thing, and in fact plays to Drumpf's core thesis with his followers -- the gubmint has left you behind, they don't care about you, you're going under and they won't help, I'm the only one you can trust to fix this mess, blah blah blah.

Fine, so what does that say about him, that he somehow managed to be hands-off and hands-on at the same time, in the worst ways possible? I would seriously suggest fixing a nice tall drink (or several) and reading as many of these docs as possible. There's some good stuff in there.

The salient points appear to be that Drumpf testifies (bear in mind that these depositions were in December and January, like five or six months ago) that contrary to the video ad pitch, the "instructors" were not "hand-picked" by The Dumb Old, but instead Chump met with the main runner of this scam, a guy named Michael Sexton, who got the broad strokes from Himself, and then went about getting the, uh, faculty together.

Drumpf tries to pass all this off that he's not a micromanager, but the marketing materials specified (again) that these individuals would be selected by Mister Man, that they would be "certified millionaires", no doubt meaning certified by him, or Sexton, or more likely a Word template cranked out at Kinko's.

At the same time, the "playbooks" have also been released (earlier today), and apparently paint a different picture, that when it came to the printed and video marketing material, Drumpf had more of a (tiny tiny) hand in things.

Now, my default setting for shit like this is that it's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. I have read almost all of the depositions and docs on the litigation site over the holiday weekend, and I still cannot shake the core conviction that there's something fucking wrong with an adult being gulled into handing over their life savings or retirement to an obvious, long-term huckster like Donald Fucking Trump.

I've been watching this asshole strut and preen in the media since the mid-'80s, and even back then -- when I was balls-deep in booze, coke, and pussy, and barely paying attention to the "news" -- I recognized this fraud for what he was. He was a jerkoff then, and he's only become a bigger jerkoff since. Honestly, I am beyond perplexed that there are people out there who are so convinced that Drumpf is a competent businessman -- much less competent enough to have any knowledge to share -- that they'd fork over everything to listen to this fucking hump.

Here's probably the first time I became acquainted with the peculiar bidness acumen of this guy -- when he bought into the USFL (although he deserves credit for running his team and paying his players well). Drumpf promptly decided that the best move for the flailing, fledgling league was to move its spring schedule up against that of the NFL, try to poach Lawrence Taylor from the Giants, and ultimately sue the NFL for antitrust violations.

That's one of the precious few lawsuits Drumpf has actually won, by the way. The court awarded him one dollar ($1.00), which eventually got bumped to $3.76 (three dollars and seventy-six cents). Well, not him, the entire league, which was eighteen teams by that point. So he got, what, about twenty-one cents? I'm not too good with numbers, see. This proved to be the template for future ventures like the Taj Mahal and the Trump Shuttle. To paraphrase David Mamet slightly, this guy could find a way to fuck up a baked potato.

He has some wealth, and some ability, but if you read his FEC disclosure, the truth becomes apparent -- most of Drumpf's net worth can be attributed to sitting on Manhattan real estate (much of which he and his dad bought up in low markets) for decades while value accrued. Good work if you can be born into it, but probably not a strategy you can stick people for five figures on.

His main ability -- and it is considerable -- is self-promotion. But much of that, if you read the New York media, can be attributed to merely picking up the phone when some putz like AJ Benza calls. Or worse yet, Drumpf picking up the phone and calling the tabloid media to either trade info or just let 'em know who he wanted to bang that week. There's something really weird and pathetic about that.

And the fact that he refuses to release his tax returns only affirms what everyone knows -- he's not worth anywhere near what he says, and he doesn't pay any taxes. Probably hasn't for years -- between grifting the city for 9/11 small business grants and undervaluing his golf courses (until he needs to borrow money, of course), this guy has been crying poor mouth for years, all while humping everyone's leg about how obscenely wealthy he is. Well, the "obscene" part is true, at least. But again, how is it that there are still some people out there that don't know HE'S A FUCKING FRAUD?

So on the one hand, people this stupid ought not to be allowed to handle money in the first place; on the other, this fucker shamelessly ripped off oldsters who were just trying to augment their meager pensions, stretch things a few more years, maybe even leave a starter college fund for the grandkids. And once his old-fart hardcore followers get a whiff of that, they might -- might -- finally start seeing the light on this guy.

And if not, well, to paraphrase some dead queen, let them eat cat food.